leonardcohenforum.com

I need to discuss...

The colors are the basic printer ink colors - magenta, cyan and yellow. Very negative association for me (oh the horror and expense of printer ink!)
Interesting that the "shadow" from the Old Ideas cover makes an appearance. I believe that is the shadow of his assistant Kezban, as she took the photo for Old Ideas.
On Old Ideas the shadow is in front of him, on PP he is leaving it behind...marching on...with cane...
Also, the shadow is fading/lighter on PP.

Seems quite meaningful when looking at the images together. Or perhaps not.

Yep, I had assumed that the shadows were the same ones from Old Ideas. I like the idea of him striding forward from Old Ideas. Perhaps 'Popular Problems' reflects his career resurgence? He and his 'problems' are now (again) popular!

The common shadow outline from Old Ideas is interesting, otherwise it's a very minimalist cover: artist and title in clear black print on white, a serious picture of the artist looking purposeful, some patches of primary colour to catch the eye, some black and grey to balance it out.

I wouldn't read too much into it, except of course 'please buy me'.

It's the first time I see Leonard with cane. A great irony of him again for his 80th birthday I suppose, if you see the "races" he makes on stage hahahaha.

I did not care much for all this until now. I mean the album covers.

It feels like an opus between Old Ideas in 2012 and Dear Heather in 2004, instead of following Old Ideas in 2014. But it informs anyhow that it comes after Old Ideas.

This because the shadows of Kezban are behind him, an inversion in the other direction. The light looks like the end of the day on OI and at the beginning of the day on PP. As well as the colors. Red for the sunset, and bright yellow and sky blue for the morning.

On PP, the photo of Leonard Cohen has the look he had on all the pictures around the promo of DH. It looks like a photomontage, the face was taken from another photo and put on the actual body, maybe not, but anyway, the hat, the face and the hand seem a bit disproportionate. He has a cane but he seems to walk swiftly, he looks in a splendid shape, his mouvements have the fluidity of youth : he walks like somebody who does not need a cane at all. The other hand in the pocket seems to dissimulate something and the look in the face is intriguing as well. It makes me wonder what he will let go out of his pocket. He looks a bit like a magicien, with a magic stick and a dove about to fly in the sky from his sleeve or from under his hat. Material that he began between two albums and is now ready to go in the world. After having finished with some old ideas of him?

Well, I guess this is like a rorschach test at some point. If we go too far in this in the exercice. Leonard Cohen having such a magical quality, a real one, to me.

I have read on the net that young men who were fans of the Beatles created the most bizarre conspiracy theory based on a cover album.

But yet, I feel that my theory, here, is not so bad.

Tchocolatl wrote:I did not care much for all this until now. I mean the album covers.

It feels like an opus between Old Ideas in 2012 and Dear Heather in 2004, instead of following Old Ideas in 2014. But it informs anyhow that it comes after Old Ideas.

This because the shadows of Kezban are behind him, an inversion in the other direction. The light looks like the end of the day on OI and at the beginning of the day on PP. As well as the colors. Red for the sunset, and bright yellow and sky blue for the morning.

On PP, the photo of Leonard Cohen has the look he had on all the pictures around the promo of DH. It looks like a photomontage, the face was taken from another photo and put on the actual body, maybe not, but anyway, the hat, the face and the hand seem a bit disproportionate. He has a cane but he seems to walk swiftly, he looks in a splendid shape, his mouvements have the fluidity of youth : he walks like somebody who does not need a cane at all. The other hand in the pocket seems to dissimulate something and the look in the face is intriguing as well. It makes me wonder what he will let go out of his pocket. He looks a bit like a magicien, with a magic stick and a dove about to fly in the sky from his sleeve or from under his hat. Material that he began between two albums and is now ready to go in the world. After having finished with some old ideas of him?

Well, I guess this is like a rorschach test at some point. If we go too far in this in the exercice. Leonard Cohen having such a magical quality, a real one, to me.

I have read on the net that young men who were fans of the Beatles created the most bizarre conspiracy theory based on a cover album.

But yet, I feel that my theory, here, is not so bad.

Jeez, it's just an album cover.

Quite - Just an album cover
Simple but effective

.
.
I took the colored shadows as Leonard's nod or tribute to Kezban, as she has done so much for him over the last few years, and probably is again the photog for the PP cover. But was the lightening and moving of the shadows done simply in order to emphasize the Leonard side of the cover or is there more involved?

What got me curious was the product page here http://leonardcohenforum.com/download/f ... &mode=view . Seeing the t shirt-- does it mean anything that the yellow shadows are further away from the person of Leonard the further back it goes? The nearest (latest?) version of Leonard has a shadow which is right near to him, whereas the further one goes back it gets more off from the Leonard. Does it mean anything or does it just make it look nicer? Did Leonard even have anything whatsoever to do with the design?

One thing which especially struck me was the color bar thing on the upper left of the page. It's clear that the color choices are a symbol of some sort. (and we can't help but think of that symbol as perhaps part of the logo for any upcoming tour)

It reminds of military ribbons, but mostly it struck me as a reference to the work of Piet Mondrian. The colors aren't just the primary colors (red, yellow, blue) but also the primary non-colors (white, black, grey) to which Mondrian limited himself in his later work. I knew at most only the basics of Mondrian so I started looking into him and found some interesting things:

"Mondrian equated art with the spiritual. He simplified his work, searching to reveal the essence of the spiritual energy in the balance of forces that governs nature and the universe."
---
"His was a search for a goal that he saw but vaguely at first and then clearly and distinctly; the attainment of that goal, a solution to the problems, artistic and human, confronting him; and thereafter no standstill, no veering in other directions, but a continuation, a constant refinement and ever new achievement of the solution"
---
"Piet Mondrian, like Kandinsky, read extensively on spiritual concepts. His endorsement of Theosophy was distinctly acknowledged and he frequently made reference to it in regard to the content of his work. His ideas were first expressed as Symbolist art, then as he began to explore the use of color as a means to project the inner being of an outwardly visible object, his work started to change. His sole objective became the reduction of form to simple contrasts of line and color to signify the unity between opposites: male and female, static and dynamic, spirit and matter. Geometric shapes and primary colors were to become his trademark, representing in simple terms the immensely complex spiritual structuring of the universe."
---
In one of his writings of an explanation of his art, he used a formula of a doubting critic, referred to as "A Singer" and himself as "The Painter" which allowed him to use musical analogies to explain his art. See some of this dialogue here: http://modernistarchitecture.wordpress. ... %E2%80%9D/

(Please note: the term "plastic" essentially means "abstract")
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"The problem of Mondrian is how to understand those marvelous grids, beyond just yielding to their silent unsymmetrical magic. I am not suggesting that we should read them as literal transcriptions of a particular religious doctrine. Mondrian was not embodying a theological program in his abstract paintings. But as he moved year by year with firm steps toward nonobjective art, as subject matter became less and less recognizable until it disappeared altogether, Mondrian was trying to say something. And it is something that purely esthetic categories cannot fully grasp. ''The life of modern cultured man,'' so Mondrian opened his first and most sustained exposition of his convictions, ''The New Plastic in Painting'' (1917), ''is gradually turning away from the natural: life is becoming more and more abstract.'' "
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"...according to Mondrian’s own notebooks, the patterns represent the struggle toward unity of cosmic dualities and the religious symmetry undergirding the material universe."
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Here is a good page going through the evolution of Mondrian's work: http://www.pietmondrian.info/mondrian-a ... -home.html
---

It also struck me that Mondrian had a retrospective exhibition of his entire work in Toronto in 1966.

I'm not saying that Mondrian is definitely the key to the cover of Popular Problems, but I think it bears some looking into. With Mondrian in mind, I can't wait to see some of the lyrics.

jerry wrote:

Tchocolatl wrote:I did not care much for all this until now. I mean the album covers.

It feels like an opus between Old Ideas in 2012 and Dear Heather in 2004, instead of following Old Ideas in 2014. But it informs anyhow that it comes after Old Ideas.

This because the shadows of Kezban are behind him, an inversion in the other direction. The light looks like the end of the day on OI and at the beginning of the day on PP. As well as the colors. Red for the sunset, and bright yellow and sky blue for the morning.

On PP, the photo of Leonard Cohen has the look he had on all the pictures around the promo of DH. It looks like a photomontage, the face was taken from another photo and put on the actual body, maybe not, but anyway, the hat, the face and the hand seem a bit disproportionate. He has a cane but he seems to walk swiftly, he looks in a splendid shape, his mouvements have the fluidity of youth : he walks like somebody who does not need a cane at all. The other hand in the pocket seems to dissimulate something and the look in the face is intriguing as well. It makes me wonder what he will let go out of his pocket. He looks a bit like a magicien, with a magic stick and a dove about to fly in the sky from his sleeve or from under his hat. Material that he began between two albums and is now ready to go in the world. After having finished with some old ideas of him?

Well, I guess this is like a rorschach test at some point. If we go too far in this in the exercice. Leonard Cohen having such a magical quality, a real one, to me.

I have read on the net that young men who were fans of the Beatles created the most bizarre conspiracy theory based on a cover album.

But yet, I feel that my theory, here, is not so bad.

Jeez, it's just an album cover.

You forget Jerry, this is the Leonard Cohen forum where anything and everything Leonard is dissected and discussed to death, even something so simple as an album cover and the more bizarre you can make your theory the better

All right, all right! Take a deep breath. He is just a charming dandy.

He is not a Trickster. Oops. Stop reading now. Stay quiet. Breath deeply, slowly.

*

For the people who can stand the heat : thanks to that thread, I found that if you can achieve the correct origami with the album cover, you have a beautiful rubik cube, already solved and all.

*

Interesting artist scocoh!

according to a DrHeck post, cane = gout.

I think the cane is a wordplay on 'Kain' as in Kain and Abel, as he is better Abel i.e. able, to walk. That's just my theory.

I always thought it was Cain and Abel?

all our suspicions confirmed as a photo is published of the graphic designer hard at work on leonard's new album cover
...ta ken